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Stingers warning as jellyfish multiply

TONY EASTLEY: With summer approaching, increasing numbers of people will be heading to beaches across Australia.

But they should beware.

Scientists are expecting a bumper season for stingers, such as box jellyfish and irukandjis in Queensland and Western Australian waters.

Stephanie Smail reports.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: It's that time of year stinger nets are being rolled out across north Queensland beaches and lifeguards are preparing for the height of the stinger season.

Peter Roulston from Surf Life Saving Queensland knows all too well the effects of stingers.

He's treated countless swimmers who have been stung by box jellyfish and irukandji in north Queensland.

PETER ROULSTON: The box jellyfish grows up to about 30 centimetres, which is about the size of a bucket with long tentacles that come out of four points and straight away, it's instantaneous, it's a burning sensation and quite painful.

Whereas the irukandji is about the size of your thumbnail and it has four tentacles and what it does is affects you about 15 to 20 minutes after you've actually got been stung.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: Peter Roulston says the stingers are already turning up in nets in north Queensland.

PETER ROULSTON: What we class as the peak stinger season is from the first of November up to May or when we stop catching any samples.

So this year we have had a few coming in a bit early.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: Dr Lisa-Ann Gershwin from the Australian Marine Stinger Advisory Service says it's shaping up to be an unusual stinger season.

She says a different species of jellyfish has been discovered in its thousands off the south east Queensland coast, earlier and further south than normal.

LISA-ANN GERSHWIN: It's one of those kind of you head scratching, chin rubbing sort of things as a scientist to look at this.

What we're seeing is large blooms of jellyfish in Perth, a particular type of jellyfish that's related to the box jellies and irukandjis but it's not itself dangerous and we're also seeing very large numbers of non-dangerous jellyfish in the Brisbane and northern New South Wales regions.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: Dr Gershwin says it could mean more lethal species will turn up further north as the weather warms up.

LISA-ANN GERSHWIN: I've been working in north Queensland and Australian jelly fish now for 12 years and I haven't seen this sort of a pattern in this time, but also reading data that go back, decades and decades, I am not aware of this sort of pattern previously.

So I think it's reasonable that we might actually have a bumper season this year.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: She says months of wet weather could be to blame.

LISA-ANN GERSHWIN: Think of jellyfish as flowers of the sea, okay, you know you think about flowers in a meadow. If you get an early rain and then lots of sunshine you get a beautiful bloom of flowers in the meadow; very, very similar with jellyfish.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: But there could be a positive outcome. Dr Lisa-Ann Gershwin says the jellyfish discovery will teach Australian marine scientists a lot about the species.

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